Workplace Wellbeing Assessment – your questions answered
Answers to frequently asked questions about the Workplace Wellbeing Assessment.
How will the Assessment help my organisation be mentally healthy?
The Workplace Wellbeing Assessment will help you work through three of the six steps to creating a mentally healthy workplace.
It allows you to consult your team about how you can support their mental health in the workplace.
It creates a report that will help you identify factors and analyse data on what’s impacting mental health in your workplace.
The report will also give you recommended actions so you can make a plan to improve mental health in your workplace.
Who is it for?
Is it free to use?
Yes.
Who created it?
The tool was developed by Safework NSW to support NSW business, as part of the Mentally healthy workplaces strategy.
What does it involve?
Organisations need to:
provide information about your organisation including your organisation name, industry and size of your workforce
set up a user profile for the person coordinating your Assessment e.g. WHS officer
identify the team/s you want to survey and upload their email addresses
Survey your staff: a survey will be sent to the email addresses you provide. There is one survey for workers and team leaders, and another for business leaders.
Download your results: once your staff complete their surveys, your organisation’s results and recommended actions will be immediately available in a 40+ page report.
How long does it take?
The survey for workers and team leaders takes up to 10 minutes.
The survey for business leaders takes up to 20 minutes.
The amount of time it will take to run the Assessment in your workplace will depend on things such as how long it takes you to gather your staff email addresses and how long you want to leave your survey open to your staff. Once you have met the minimum number of survey responses and closed the survey, your report will be immediately available.
What topics does it cover?
The Assessment has five sections. Sections 1 to 4 ask questions about the four focus areas that measure how a workplace promotes, manages and supports mental health at work:
Policy and processes
Managing risk in the workplace
Education and training
Support services
Section 5 asks respondents about their experiences with mental health in your workplace, such as whether they have taken time off due to feeling mentally unwell at work.
To see the survey questions, download a sample report (PDF 533.39KB) and go to section 'Detailed survey responses' on page 30.
What will I get?
Your organisation will get a detailed report that scores your capability to promote, manage and support mental health at work; benchmarks your organisation against others in your industry and NSW; and gives you practical actions to improve your score.
Download a sample report. (PDF 533.39KB)
In the report your organisation will be rated across the four focus areas that measure how you promote, manage and support mental health at work:
Policy and processes
Managing risk in the workplace
Education and training
Support services
The report will also present respondents’ experiences with mental health in your workplace, such as whether they have taken time off due to feeling mentally unwell at work.
You will be able to see how scores vary between your workers, team leaders and business leaders, as well as how your workplace compares to businesses of the same industry and size.
Your scores will be calculated using scientifically validated methods developed for the NSW benchmarking tool. Over 8000 employers and 16,000 workers have been surveyed using this tool.
How is privacy managed?
The tool does not collect any identifying information from survey respondents such as name, age, gender or job title.
A minimum number of workers and team leaders need to complete the tool’s survey to keep their responses anonymous. The results from these staff are combined and presented in total in the final report. If the minimum number of staff do not complete the survey, your organisation cannot access your results.
The minimum number of business leaders needed to take part in the tool’s survey is one. If only one business leader in your organisation completes the survey, this may leave them identifiable. You need at least one business leader to take part so you capture the perspectives of people who are primarily responsible for work health and safety in your results.
Read more in the terms and conditions.
Is my data secure?
Data is stored at a secure data centre in Australia. Only people with a user profile to your account will be able to see your organisation’s report. Read more in the terms and conditions.
Who needs a user profile?
Only the people in your organisation who are coordinating the Assessment and want to track its progress, or want to download the final report, need a user profile. We recommended users be people responsible for work health and safety in your organisation e.g. WHS officer, small business owner.
We strongly recommend having more than one user in your organisation.
Does it work on all devices?
The tool is compatible for desktop, mobile and tablet. We recommend using a desktop or laptop computer and Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge web browsers for the best experience when activating a survey and entering your email addresses. Do not use Internet Explorer to access the tool as this browser is no longer supported by Microsoft.
Is it accessible?
The Workplace Wellbeing Assessment has been developed to be accessible, including the pdf report of results.
Questions from business
What do I need before I start?
Leadership support: Get executive support to consult your staff about workplace mental health and a genuine intention to act on the results. Use the email template in our toolkit.
Communications plan: Prepare messages for your staff about what the Assessment is, why you’re doing it and what you’ll do with their responses. Use the email templates, posters and social media tiles in our toolkit to help you with this. Also consider sharing the 'Questions from employees' with them.
Account and user profile: You need at least one person in your organisation to create an account and user profile. This person will be responsible for coordinating the Assessment in your workplace. We recommend users be people responsible for work health and safety in your organisation.
Business size: You need a minimum of six employees.
Minimum participants: You need a minimum number of survey responses from different areas of your organisation, to make sure results are deidentified and you capture a variety of perspectives and experiences. Please see the table below for the set minimums.
Email addresses: You need the email addresses for all staff you wish to survey, either as a CSV file or entered manually. The email addresses need to be sorted into three groups: business leaders, team leaders and workers (see definitions below). You will not be able to add, edit or delete email addresses once you have distributed your survey.
Total number of people being surveyed | |
6-19 | Business leaders – 1 Workers/Team leaders – 5 |
20-49 | Business leaders – 1 Team leaders – 5 (or exclude this group) Workers - 10 |
50-99 | Business leaders – 1 Team leaders – 5 (or exclude this group) Workers - 15 |
100 + | Business leaders – 1 Team leaders – 5 (or exclude this group) Workers – 30 |
Definitions
Number of people being surveyed could be your whole organisation, or a department or team within it. We recommend large organisations (200+ people) run the assessment within smaller groups, so you get actionable insights.
Business leaders are the 'officers' responsible for, or who participate in, making business decisions for the organisation e.g. owners / employers, executives, partners, senior management or human resource managers.
Team leaders are people with influence over the work of others or who have workers reporting directly to them e.g. team manager, supervisor, roster coordinator.
Workers includes all people who do not have people management responsibilities e.g. employees, contractors and volunteers.
Can I change the survey questions?
No. The questions in the tool’s survey are based on a scientifically validated NSW benchmarking tool developed by researchers.
Why use this tool instead of my own survey?
The Workplace Wellbeing Assessment is based on the NSW benchmarking tool developed by researchers. It is a scientifically validated way to measure the key indicators of a mentally healthy workplace and compare your organisation to others in your industry and NSW. More than 8000 employers and 16,000 workers in NSW have been surveyed using this tool to benchmark NSW.
You can run multiple surveys at the same time to compare results across teams or departments.
You can run the Assessment again at later dates to measure your progress.
The Assessment does not measure your compliance against work health and safety laws and regulations.
We recommend you use a variety of ways to consult your workers about mental health at work. See SafeWork NSW’s consultation toolkit.
Where are the benchmarks from?
The NSW benchmarking tool. We have used this tool to survey the mental health capability of businesses across NSW in 2017, 2020 and most recently 2022. The benchmarking data in your report is based on results from the 2022 benchmarking of over 4000 employers and 8000 workers.
Can regulators or the NSW Government see identifiable data about my workplace?
The NSW Government and Safework NSW cannot see your individual organisation's results. We have access to aggregate data collected by the tool, such as results by industry, business size and location. This is so we can report on how the tool is being used, and track changes in workplace mental health in NSW over time. Read more in the terms and conditions.
How often should I do the Assessment?
We recommend redoing the Assessment every six to 12 months to measure the impact of the actions you take to become a mentally healthy workplace. You will be able to compare current and past results in your report.
How does this tool differ from others?
We have a number of self-assessment tools to support businesses to create a mentally healthy workplace.
Our Workplace Pulse Check is an 11 question, five-minute survey. It gives you a confidential and quick assessment of your organisation’s capability to promote, manage and support mental health at work. Your results are based on one person’s answers. This tool is funded by SafeWork NSW and will help you:
- get a quick idea of how mentally healthy your workplace is
- get actions to keep your workers safe and engaged
- see how your organisation compares to others in your industry and NSW.
Use this tool to get your leaders on board to invest in workplace mental health.
Our Workplace Wellbeing Assessment measures your organisation’s capability to promote, support and manage mental health. It gives you a confidential and detailed assessment based on a 10-20 minute survey done by your workforce. This tool is funded by SafeWork NSW and will help you:
consult with your workforce about mental health
uncover the different perspectives of your workers and leaders
get recommended actions to keep your workers safe and engaged
see how your organisation compares to others in your industry and NSW
measure and report on changes in your organisation’s capability over time.
Use this tool to understand how well your organisation is providing the foundations of a mentally healthy workplace, and what experiences people are having with mental ill-health in your workplace.
People at Work is a risk assessment tool. It measures your organisation’s level of risk for common psychological hazards, such as bullying, harassment and workload stressors. It gives you a confidential and detailed assessment based on a 10-15 minute survey completed by your workforce. It is funded by health and safety regulators across Australia, including SafeWork NSW. This tool will help you:
identify, assess and mange risks to the psychological health of your workers
work on meeting your obligations under work health and safety laws
see how your level of risk compares to other Australian workplaces
get recommended next steps and resources
measure and report on changes in your level of risk over time.
Use this tool when you have concerns about psychological health in your workplace, due to issues like workers compensation claims and high staff turnover, or want to understand the specific psychosocial risks to mental health that may be in your workplace, such as bullying, or workload stressors, and how to address these.
Can I copy parts of the Assessment?
The material in the Workplace Wellbeing Assessment platform and surveys is protected under Australian and international copyright and other laws governing protection of Intellectual Property rights. You must not disclose, copy or create derivative works from any part of the Assessment survey or platform. See the Terms of Use.
Can I get help interpreting my report?
Your report will include your survey results and analysis. It will tell you your strengths and weaknesses and give you recommended actions to help you create an action plan. In the appendix, you will be able to see the results for each survey question. This will help you see where you had high and low scores, and differences between your business leaders, team leaders and workers.
If you are a small or medium sized business, our coaches are available to help you analyse your results and create an action plan. Learn more about our coaching service. This service is free for businesses with less than 200 staff or not-for-profits of any size.
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How do I contact someone about the Workplace Wellbeing Assessment?
If you need help with your account or surveys, contact us.
Questions from employees
My employer has asked me to do the survey. What’s involved?
You will be invited to do an anonymous survey on your perspectives of mental health in your workplace. The questions cover these four focus areas that measure how a workplace promotes, manages and supports mental health at work:
- Policy and processes
- Managing risk in the workplace
- Education and training
- Support services
The survey will also ask you about your experiences with mental health in your workplace.
The results from across your workplace will be presented to your organisation in a report. The report gives your leaders a snapshot of your workplace’s ability to promote, manage and support mental health at work, and actions they can take to improve your workplace.
Can I opt out?
The survey is voluntary. If you don't want to take part, you can ignore the request. Your employer will not know who has or hasn't filled in the survey as it is anonymous.
Remember, this survey is your opportunity to provide feedback to your employer to help improve your workplace.
Will my answers be confidential?
Yes. The Assessment does not collect any identifying information such as your name, age, gender or job title. Your organisation must collect at least five survey responses from workers and team leaders to keep your responses anonymous. If your organisation does not get the minimum number of responses, it cannot access its results.
The only exception to this is if you are doing the survey for business leaders. The minimum number of business leaders your organisation needs to take part in the Assessment is one. If you are the only business leader to do the survey, this may leave you identifiable.
At least one business leader needs to complete the survey so the Assessment captures the perspective of those with the primary responsibility for work health and safety in your organisation.
Read more in the terms and conditions.
How do I know if I’m doing the survey for workers, team leaders or business leaders?
You will get an email inviting you to ‘Have your say on workplace wellbeing’. Click the button to ‘Start the survey’. It will take you to the survey start page and will say ‘Survey for workers’, ‘Survey for team leaders’, or ‘Survey for business leaders’.
You can also ask the person coordinating the Assessment in your workplace which survey you have been given.
Can I save my survey and come back later?
Yes. You can close the survey and return using the same link. You will start again from the first page however your answers will be saved from where you left.
How will my data be used?
Your survey answers are combined with responses from other staff and presented in total to your organisation in a report. The report aims to give your leaders a snapshot of your workplace’s ability to promote, manage and support mental health at work, and actions they can take to improve your workplace.
Download a sample report. (PDF 533.39KB)
Can I get a copy of my organisation's results?
Only people with a Workplace Wellbeing Assessment user profile can access the report generated by the tool. Users are the people in your organisation who are coordinating the Assessment and are usually the people responsible for work health and safety in your workplace, such as a WHS officer or business owner. It is up to these users who they share the report with.
We encourage organisations to share results with their employees as part of the consultation process to creating a mentally healthy workplace.